Flood crisis center nears completion

Leony Aurora , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta

Rain has started to fall regularly over the past several days, but the flood and natural disaster crisis center in the City Hall, Central Jakarta, is not yet up and running.

Syarafuddin Arsyad, head of the alertness department at the City Public Order Agency, said on Tuesday that the center would be ready in January but did not specify an exact date.

"It is a crisis management system that we are building, and it may take some time," he said. "We are still waiting for higher policies to be signed (to build a complete system), but in the mean time we will run the operation here."

Previously stationed on the second floor of Blok D in the City Hall, the crisis center is now located within the building of the Crisis Prevention Agency.

A long square wooden table stands in the middle of the room with some chairs around it. Several boxes of computers are piled up against the wall.

The crisis center has a 24-hour hotline at phone number 382- 2011, which can be used to receive reports from the public.

"Nobody has reported any flooding so far. Jakarta is still safe for now," Arsyad said.

The center will inform subdistrict heads of possible flooded areas via cellular phones and two-way radios which have been provided for them and they, in turn, will alert residents.

The city administration earlier claimed that it would be more prepared for floods this year with the operation of the crisis center and will apparently utilize more than 40,000 people from various institutions in the event of a crisis.

Data from the Meteorological and Geophysical Agency (BMG) showed that for the last three days, daily rainfall in Greater Jakarta ranged from 0.1 millimeters to 63 mm.

BMG has forecast that the capital will see 26 to 28 rainy days in January with precipitation of 50 mm to 100 mm per day. It takes only 75 mm of rainfall daily for three consecutive days to inundated several areas.